Paradise City (Paradise #1)by C.J. Duggan
Publisher: Hachette Australia Books
Release Date: April 28th 2015
Genre: New Adult/Young Adult, Chick Lit, Romance, Contemporary
Rate: Enjoyed it (4 stars)
Synopsis:
There's bound to be trouble in Paradise . . .
When her parents decide a change will be good for her, seventeen-year-old Lexie Atkinson never expected they'd send her all the way to Paradise City. Coming from a predictable life of home schooling on a rural Australian property, she's sure that Paradise will be amazing. But when she's thrust into a public school without a friendly face in sight, and forced to share a room with her insipid, hateful cousin Amanda, Lexie's not so sure.
Hanging out with the self-proclaimed beach bums of the city, sneaking out, late night parties and parking with boys are all things Lexie's never experienced, but all that's about to change. It's new, terrifying . . . and exciting. But when she meets Luke Ballantine, exciting doesn't even come close to describing her new life. Trouble with a capital T, Luke is impulsive, charming and answers to no one. The resident bad-boy leader of the group, he's sexier than any boy Lexie has ever known.
Amidst the stolen moments of knowing looks and heated touches, Lexie can't help but wonder if Luke is going to be good for her . . . or very, very bad?
I adore C.J. Duggan's books. She knows what readers want and bring to live amazing characters while making us desire to be on the dreamy place she writes about. Paradise City was no exception. It has everything a book written by her always has: sexy boys, a place where everyone would like to live or spend the summer, romance and a moving story.
Paradise City, as other books written by C.J., is what I consider a perfect summer read. The story starts with country girl Lexie. She's dying to be out of her town and what a better place to go than the dreamy city her cousin moved to a couple of years ago. However, not everything in Paradise City is what you would call a dreamy place. Her cousin has changed and seems to hate her, making new friends is more difficult than she expected and the one boy in Paradise City that has trouble written all over him is the only one Lexie can't stop thinking about.
All the characters in this book felt as real as the story. They are moody, funny, rebellious and not thinking clearly when the other sex is around. For example, Amanda. She starts the story as a bitch. She hates her sweet cousin for no apparent reason and behaves like a real witch. However, she ends up being friends with her cousin and confiding in her. Or Lexie, she's the responsible and intelligent one in the story, who always cares about her grades, but when it comes to Luke Ballantine every rational thought she has seems to evaporate and she ends up in some kind of trouble. This is what a teenage romance or a teenage story should be like: with its ups and downs, always keeping the reader invested in the story and enjoying the characters.
Lexie, as you might have guessed by now, is the main character in this new series. She's a sweetheart and you instantly like hear and are dying to see what's she going to do next or what's going to happen to her. You read her point of view the whole story and it's just a shame in some scenes to not truly know what's really happening in Luke's head. However, I think that's one of the aspects the author played with, since some actions catch the reader not expecting what is going to happen next or you start to double think everything, not sure that the intentions in some characters are real.
With a cliffhanger at the end of the story that will leave you breathless and trying to bribe anyone to give you the second book in the story or just repeat Lexie's words in that chapter "Oh no no no no.", Paradise City would captivate you until the very last page. You will want to be in Paradise City, be one of the characters and wish you were seeing hot surfer boys while reading it. I had all my faith in C.J. Duggan's new story and it didn't disappointed me, making me rate Paradise City as the perfect read for this upcoming summer.
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C.J Duggan is a number one internationally bestselling Australian author of seven independent titles of her popular New Adult Summer series. In addition to her chart-topping indie novels, C.J is set to publish two titles with Hachette, Australia with her brand-new Paradise Series in 2015 (Paradise City and Paradise Road).
C.J lives with her husband in a rural border town of New South Wales, Australia. When she isn't writing books about swoony boys and 90s pop culture you will find her renovating her hundred-year-old Victorian homestead or annoying her local travel agent for a quote to escape the chaos.
The 'Summer Series'
The Boys of Summer (December 2012)
Stan (October 2014)
An Endless Summer (July 2013)
Max (February 2015)
That One Summer (December 2013)
Ringer (March 2014)
Forever Summer (December 2015)
The 'Paradise Series'
Paradise City (April 28th, 2015)
